


Red, the Colour of Your Words

by ryukoishida



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Synaesthesia AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 02:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3471839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryukoishida/pseuds/ryukoishida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Haruka hears sounds, it’s the colours that he first perceives. Out of all the colours of this world, Makoto’s voice is his favourite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red, the Colour of Your Words

“Haru, can I ask you something?” A familiar hue hovers above the speaker’s head like a cloud of smoke, a poetic speech bubble made of a gentle timbre tinged with creamy white and hints of translucent pink, like rosé wine swirling in a tall, elegant glass, unbelievably smooth and at times mesmerizingly soothing.

 

Haruka blinks twice before he replies, his own voice curt and calm, a deep, impenetrable violet, brittle and sharp like chipped ice, “What?”

 

Makoto lowers his head a little, olive brown locks falling into his eyes, and he has to push his bangs back before looking up to meet his best friend’s guarded gaze. He probably isn’t aware of it, but his fingers are restlessly wringing behind his back, nails catching on skin and the slight pain doesn’t even register. “How should I go about confessing to someone dear to me without wrecking our friendship?”

 

“Excuse me?” Haruka scrunches up his nose a little, eyes narrowing, half bewildered by the question and half irritated for reasons he doesn’t understand yet.

 

“You heard me.” It appears that the previous question has lend Makoto enough strength to make his words a little firmer, the glowing pink engulfing the ivory.

 

“Who is it?” Shards of violet ice, falling against concrete by his feet and hissing when they dissipate into dust of lavender hue. Haruka’s tone remains steady, and he thinks he sees Makoto shudders under the calming storm of his scrutiny.

 

“Does it matter?” Makoto asks as he takes a small step closer to the dark-haired boy. The expression he wears is an unfamiliar one, and this is strange for Haruka, who has always been able to read his emotions like a book; Makoto makes it easy, too, because he never tries to hide anything in front of him. It’s either that, or he’s pathetically terrible at it.

 

Or maybe Haruka’s just too good at perceiving the colours of Makoto’s words. 

 

‘It does! It does!’ His mind screams, silent and useless. Colourless. Just a dark shadow struggling in the back of his mind. He doesn’t acknowledge the loaded question – doesn’t know how to answer it, really.

 

“I guess,” Haruka turns his head to the side, gaze dropping to the ground as more ice fragments fall from his lips, bitten to rawness, “the best way to go about it is to tell them the truth.”

 

“And what if they reject me?” A hypothetical question, surely, for who would even consider rejecting Tachibana Makoto, a man who does everything in his power to care for the people he loves, who does so much for others and demands too little for himself, a boy with colours so kind and thoughtful and _beautiful_ …?

 

“Then they don’t know shit, and they don’t deserve you.”

 

-

 

Haruka sees the world in a whirlwind of colours: the offensive red on the stop sign by the street corner, the bright aqua of the tiles underneath the chlorinated water of his school’s outdoor pool, the dire blue-grey of thick storm clouds about to burst into relentless rain.

 

But that’s not all.

 

He wishes that’s all, then maybe he wouldn’t be consistently suffering from growing migraines of colour currents battling each other in his vision through push and pull of a vicious dance: the honk of a car a flashing yellow that’s almost blinded him on his way to school, the dull murmuring of his math teacher’s lecture an unimpressive mud brown with slick-sludge viscosity that drips from his lips and pools on the desk.

 

And when tens or more of those things run together into a vicious tornado of sounds and colours, a tirade that never ebbs, constantly clashing in his peripheral vision that he has no way to escape from, Haruka treasures the silence even more, even when that seemingly stagnant serenity often flows with a soft white noise in the background.

 

Swimming helps, the water dulling the sounds around him and distorts them into aqueous refractions of muted shades, and the lulling rhythm of water splashing against the tiled walls of the pool is a calming metrical pattern of black and white.

 

Sometimes, Haruka thinks maybe it’s this strange ability – an unfair advantage to some, perhaps – to see colours in sounds that allows him to be able to easily manipulate the movements of lines and shapes, the bold slashes and delicate furls of colours on blank canvas.

 

Makoto just gives his best friend his usual smile and tells him, green eyes tender and soft, and the milk white and pale pink of his words trail out between his lips in a shimmering vapour, “You’re talented but, you know, it doesn’t mean much if you don’t spend the time and effort to practice and refine your talent, right? Give yourself some credit, Haru.”

 

Half the time when they talk, Haruka gets so distracted by the subtle changes in the colour of Makoto’s voice as his tone transforms in the finest pitch depending on the shift of his emotions that he loses the direction of where their conversation is going, and when he glances over at Makoto after noticing they have stopped talking for a few minutes, Makoto would give him this knowing smile, a little teasing as if he knows that his voice is the cause of miniature chaos in Haruka’s perception but mostly it’s full of an exasperated fondness and complete understanding evident in the warm green of his eyes.

 

He likes watching how the pigment and the texture of Makoto’s voice turns a rosier, radiant pink when he bursts out laughing whenever Nagisa does one of his penguin impressions, or how it erupts into a majestic hue of lilac when he cheers for his teammates during swim meets.

 

Even during the one big fight they had over the summer, with the explosion of fireworks distant in the background, the fizzling of gold and silver stars fading into the velvet black of the sky and the reverberation of the thunder that echoes amidst the clapping of the spectators rising from the beach like the swell of ocean too tall too suffocating _too much_ , Makoto getting into his personal space, his grip on his wrist tight and stifling like shackles, his beautiful white-pink river of light cracking into ugly burgundy wine red shards of glass, “It’s because we all love you… because we care about you.”

 

Even then, Haruka couldn’t tear his gaze away from the glass shards of words cutting a deeper scarlet into his skin, his heart, because the colour of Tachibana Makoto’s words is evanescent yet constantly changing.

 

Throughout the years of their friendship, Haruka has since learned to read his best friend’s emotions through the shifting colours of his words. He doesn’t tell him that, though.

 

-

 

He takes a deep breath and lets out a nervous chuckle in a trail of pale rose mist. “Well, here it goes.”

 

“Makoto?” The dark-haired boy tilts his head in question, but doesn’t back away when the taller brunette walks closer until there’s only one footstep of distance between them. It’s close enough for them to touch if they reach out for each other, but far enough to drift apart with the slightest of momentum, like petals of a cherry blossom tree scattering into a frenzied dance of loss and consummation.

 

“Haruka,” he speaks his name with care to every syllable, like it’s something to be treasured, something to protect and love, and the colour coming out of Makoto’s mouth is a little different than the usual shade of gentle blossom pink. It’s darker, the shade turning deeper and denser until it’s the perfect shade of red, and Haruka feels the warm breath of hue spreads across his skin like a caress. “Haru, I love you.”

 

The train rumbles in a monstrous roar behind Haruka, and just for that one, brief moment, everything in his world goes absolutely dark.

 

The screeching of the train as it grinds to a stop is a sharp neon orange jagged line to his right, and he’s left staring at the nervously smiling face of the boy whose voice paints the air with colours that are as harmonious and wondrous as a Monet painting.

 

He should probably say something back, tells him that he feels the same – perhaps longer than he’s aware of. Perhaps they’re both idiots who have taken too long to realize, and even longer to admit to themselves and to each other.

 

But his sky is shielded in a red dome of unspoken words, though traces of soft white is still visible, and it’s warm and inviting and loving, like an umbrella protecting him from the raging storm of the world.

 

That’s what Makoto’s words are to Haruka, and he thinks his reply of indigo ice shards will only rip this perfection apart, so he doesn’t say anything, not letting a slip of his flawed colour out, not right now.

 

Instead, he takes that one step forward that brings them closer, and he reaches up with the tip of his toes, eyes screwed tightly closed as he wraps a hand around the back of Makoto’s neck, who releases a surprised yelp that would have made Haruka laugh if his heart isn’t being so busy trying to beat out of his ribcage.

 

Haruka answers in the silence he knows and cherishes well: a kiss that colours have no ways to describe. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, nothing much goes on with this piece, which is unfortunate. I just really like the idea of Haru being in love with Makoto and the colours he sees whenever Makoto speaks. I don’t know, man. I need to get back to something with a fucking plot. But if you did enjoy this, please consider casting a vote at the Official MakoHaru Festival (http://theofficialmakoharufestival.tumblr.com/post/112581153000); that’d be super cool of you, yeah! 
> 
> I still have 3 more fics in store for the festival (bookstore AU, yoga AU, and radio AU), so please stick around if you’re interested! :3


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